Conquering the Unconquerable
by Alabaster Ink
Summary: Susan played games, deadly games, and the world was about to find out just how dangerous a game she played. From the "Through Time and Tested Error" Universe.


Yeah, so I know this is a bit depressing right before Christmas, but it wouldn't leave my head, so I really can't do anything about that. On the other hand, I think it turned out rather well, although I would strongly advise reading Through Time and Tested Error first. Otherwise, I really can't guarantee you'll understand it.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy my different take on the Pevensie children (Susan in this particular little fic), but don't take it too seriously. It is meant to be a story, a fanfic, not exactly real life.

Also, please ignore any grammar or spelling issues that you see. It's late and I'm tired, so my mind is a bit addled.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and aren't you all glad for that!

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><p><strong>Conquering the Unconquerable<strong>

**One-shot**

_I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come and see!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest._

_ -Revelation 6: 1-2 NIV_

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><p>Queen Susan the Gentle was beautiful. Many times was she described as being fairer than the moon, more radiant than the sun, and more captivating than the stars. Her beauty was said to strike even the most stubborn of kings and her very presence was able to stun a room into silence. She was a treasure, a jewel, prized by thousands and kept by but a bare few. Men vied to have her and women vied to be her. Queen Susan was, in a word, perfect.<p>

_But perfection tarnishes._ A young girl gazed at herself blankly in the mirror.

Softly, she cupped her cheek with her hand and observed herself in the looking glass. Plump red lips and rosy cheeks stood out in contrast to the almost porcelain skin. Deep blue eyes, once compared to being as mesmerizing as the sea, stared back at her surrounded by a frame of thick dark hair. A few pimples littered her face but they were small and almost unnoticeable. She was rather stunning for her age, but it really is quite hard to compare between Susan Pevensie and Queen Susan the Gentle. Sharing the same body does not mean being the same person.

Narrowing her eyes, the girl, in a fit of spontaneity, calmly and forcefully slapped the hand that had cupped her cheek across her face and closed her eyes at the sudden pain. Maybe, when she opened them again, the pain will have jarred her out of this nightmare of yesteryear. Slowly, as if fearful, she opened her eyes to see if anything had changed and slumped in despondence upon realizing that the room was exactly the same. It was all reality. There were no gorgeous gowns in her closet or giggling ladies to help her get ready for the day, no obnoxious suitors to turn down or loving subjects in need of her care. All that was new was the glowing and stinging handprint that now marred her cheek.

Maybe she should have hit harder.

"Susan!" A loud knock came from the other side of the door calling the girl's attention away from the glass reflection. "Susan, I know you're in there! I have something really important to tell you!" The knocking continued and the dark haired girl could only give a long-suffering sigh.

Pasting on the most sincere smile she could muster (which really wasn't all that sincere), Susan Pevensie rose from her seat and opened the wooden door just a bit to see her visitor. As she had suspected, the caked-up mask of one Mary Levington met her gaze and grinned in a way that should not have appeared on her face. Susan tried very hard not to groan. Mary Levington was a definite piece of work.

"Am I not allowed in?" She batted her eyelashes and pushed past Susan, promptly seating herself on the edge of the bed. Not even waiting for the younger girl to speak, Mary began reciting all of the exciting events of her day.

Susan, clenching her teeth in a bad impersonation of a smile, turned to her classmate and closed the door behind her. It wasn't that she disliked the other girl, dislike was a rather strong word, but it was more that she felt the girl needed a reality check, despite the fact that Susan's reality was slightly different than everyone elses.

Mary Levington was the epitome the stereotypical post-war socialite. She could flirt like no other and was able to afford the best dresses for the absolute best parties. The girl had a story for just about everything and it was almost impossible to determine what was false or not. Gossip, chatter, rumors, you name it, and she's probably had a hand in it somehow. And now, for better or worse, she had taken an almost unhealthy obsession with one Susan Pevensie.

It was not reciprocated.

But Susan, too gentle and lacking in the authority she had had in Narnia, merely let the girl have her fun, nodding and agreeing in all the right places. Being a queen for over a decade does give one a multitude of talents. But today, Mary was about to run her mouth just a little bit too far to the wrong person and the consequences of such would not be pretty.

"So I was talking to Edith last night, who just got another telegram from the darling soldier yesterday, you remember him right?" Susan nodded, despite not remembering him in the least. "Well, she got a telegram from him and he said that he couldn't wait to see her again and that he would be in the city all week if she wanted to meet up, and I said that she should, but she was hesitant. So, I took her aside and told her that this could be her one true love and she would probably never get this chance again, and she nodded and agreed and was all excited until that Lucy girl, you know the one from third form, started laughing. It was all very insulting and I really wanted to just go over to her and…" She continued to talk, but Susan was very much not listening anymore, and was rather more concerned with reigning in her budding anger.

In Mary's defense she probably didn't realize that 'that Lucy girl' was in any way related to Susan, as she tended to spend very little time in learning the names of people she didn't think were of much importance. It would have been a surprise if she even knew Susan's last name. But, unfortunately for her, the former gentle queen didn't particularly care what Mary knew or did not know, but was rather more focused on the fact of that someone would dare to talk ill of her younger sister, especially when they knew absolutely nothing about her.

"…so then I was helping her decide between the white dress and the blue one when all of the sudden-"

"How do you know she was laughing at you?" Susan blurted out, unable to stop herself.

The redhead just gave her an inquisitorial look as if she had no idea what the girl was asking. "What?"

Sighing, Susan repeated her question. "How do you know she was laughing at you?"

"Know who was laughing, dear?"

The former queen noticeably clenched her fists against the skirt of her school uniform. "Lucy. How do you know that Lucy was laughing at you?"

Mary, either not understanding the significance of the question or thinking that Susan was just having a dumb moment, rolled her eyes and sighed. "I already told you Su, that the little girl was reading a book. I know for a fact that no book could possibly be interesting enough for someone to laugh at it so she must have been laughing at us. Honestly, dear, use your common sense."

"Maybe she just likes to read," Susan argued gently, knowing much more than Mary that Lucy enjoyed reading almost as much as Edmund and herself. Peter was really the only one who would look at a book and twitch.

The older girl, however, just scoffed at the suggestion. "Oh please, Su, no one reads unless they have to. She was obviously listening in to our conversation. Little girls like her need to learn that they are not welcome in such adult talk." She shook her head and, not even giving Susan the chance to reply, resumed her original spiel. "Now, where was I, oh right, so Jane and I were trying to help Edith choose between the blue dress and the white one when all of the sudden…" But Susan had already tuned her out. The ramblings of a self-centered child were of no consequence to a queen such as Susan.

But as she continued to watch the little girl babble on about nonsense, Susan couldn't help but feel the bubbling of righteous anger within her heart. Injustices against the Narnian Royal Family were never tolerated and Mary had just committed a very grave injustice. She had threatened a Queen and Susan would not let that go unpunished.

The next morning, Mary Levington fell ill with a rather mild case of the sniffles. By noon she had a fever, and by dinner she was taken to the hospital.

The morning after that she was pronounced dead from an unheard of virulent strain of scarlet fever.

The day after that, Susan Pevensie gazed in the mirror before the memorial service and watched as the pimples disappeared from her face. Skin, smoother than it had ever been before, taunted her from the looking glass. There were no marks or blemishes to be seen and Susan looked at herself, transfixed.

Rising numbly from her seat, she grabbed a pillow off her bed, glad that her roommate had already left, and screamed. She screamed for what felt like ages, her head buried in the pillow and her knees shaking uncontrollably. The former queen screamed and cursed until her throat was raw, and when she finally found the strength to pick herself up from where she had collapsed on the floor she found herself retreating to the closest washroom to throw up.

Lucy made no comment when she arrived ten minutes late.

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><p>She was really beginning to hate mirrors. They were vile and wretched, taunting her with the beauty that she was very swiftly growing into. Men began to flock to her once more; only instead of the noble princes she was used to they were but mere boys pretending to be chivalrous. It was…disheartening to be honest. Still, they were nice and sweet for the most part, and she even allowed a few to take her out on a date, but none of them ever amounted to much. They were good for a party date, but once the night was over so was the attraction.<p>

Susan sat once more in front of the looking glass just staring at the too deep eyes and the too luxurious hair. Her eyes were captivating, many boys had said, her hair just perfect. They showered her with unwanted compliments and she took them all with a smile until she was sitting in front of the mirror. It was only then that she allowed herself to feel numb.

And feel numb she did. Another date had cancelled due to an unexplained sickness and she was left in her house for another Friday night. She sighed. Susan wouldn't be surprised if this one was dead by morning. Almost all of her dates died by morning. She was becoming immune to it.

Touching her smooth cheek lightly with her fingertips, Susan traced her face searching for any imperfection, hoping beyond hope that she would find at least one pimple. She didn't. She knew she wouldn't.

Susan Pevensie didn't have any imperfections. She only got more beautiful with each passing day. The mirror proved it.

Her anger began to pool again, moving from her stomach up to her heart and then to her throat. Picking up a silver hairbrush, she stood from the stool and took aim, ready to smash the offending piece of glass to pieces.

"Susan?" A deep voice came from behind the door of her bedroom. Spinning around, her arm still in the air, she met her older brother's too old gaze. He took note of the raised arm and tear tracks on her face before nodding and entering her little sanctuary.

Closing the door, he walked deliberately over to her prone form and calmly took the brush out of her hand. Setting it on the vanity, he lowered her arm with his free hand and pulled her into a tight hug. He always knew what she needed.

Getting over the initial shock, Susan wrapped her arms around his chest and clung to the back of his shirt, tears spilling from her eyes. Great sobs escaped unwittingly from her lips as she wept at the unfairness of it all. Peter only held her tighter, murmuring meaningless and soothing words into her ear. He rocked her back and forth as she cried, drawing as much comfort from her as she did from him.

All four of them could feel the daunting shadow of the future that awaited them, but it was Susan's which was the most imminent. Her siblings saw everyday how she seemed to grow more and more radiant, almost to the point where it was terrifying. They listened to the radio as reports of mysterious illnesses spread throughout Greater London. Most of them were attributed to the war that had ended only one short year ago.

They knew it wasn't the war.

So as Peter threaded his fingers through his sister's hair, he imagined it becoming tangled and messy, maybe even greasy if he were lucky – anything to make her feel less beautiful. Because Peter knew, as all the Friends of Narnia did, that for every illness Susan's curse procured, she gained what her victims lost.

She really was a great and terrible beauty.

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><p>All the mirrors in her flat were gone. The first one, a gift from her mother when she moved out, had been transferred very discretely to the local pawnshop. The second, gold plated and intricate, had been 'lost' in the move and was nowhere to be found. Her third, however, had thus met an unfortunate accident when Susan was in a rare state, colliding quite forcefully with the hairbrush of yesteryear and breaking into a thousand pieces.<p>

She was quite positive that she was going to have a bit more than seven years of bad luck.

Her twenty-first year proved this superstition true when at the most random hour – 8:07 to be precise – she received a telephone call from Edmund. He asked her to join them at the train station, to join them as they tried to return to Narnia.

She almost said yes.

The word was forming on her lips when she felt it, felt that glowing warmth that she usually associated with happiness and love. There was no happiness this time.

She said no. The words spilled from her mouth before she could even think about them. She called them all silly for still believing in fairytales before slamming the telephone down in a rush. It took a moment for the reality of what she had just done to hit her, but when it did she collapsed to her knees and didn't get back up. Gripping the stand from where she was on the floor, she felt her nails dig into the soft wood as tears fell from too perfect eyes. Even crying she was beautiful.

Susan was still there an hour later when the phone rang again, but she didn't answer it. Using the stand to haul herself to her feet, Susan teetered to the bathroom and filled up the bathtub to the brim. She didn't get in, but simply used the water to gaze at her reflection. If nothing else, the tear tracks only highlighted her perfect face.

Tears began to fall again. There was a reason Susan had moved out before even Peter. She couldn't bear to let her family see her unnatural beauty. Even her parents seemed slightly frightened by her captivating blue eyes and her eerily unblemished skin. She could see every day how her siblings seemed to be unable to look at her, fearing that they were seeing their own futures and not wanting to accept it.

She couldn't even accept it.

So she left. She left like the coward she felt she must be. Queen Susan, with the slight burn on her left cheek and the numerous arrow scars on her arms, never would have run. Susan Pevensie, a young girl who listened too much to her fears, did.

And she was afraid; afraid of her future, her past, and even her present. She feared watching her siblings become just like her and she trembled at the mere thought of her parents somehow figuring it all out. Susan didn't want that. Not for herself and most certainly not for her siblings. For she knew that if they questioned her, they would question all of them. She could not allow that to happen.

Too late now.

There was a knock at the door. She knew what it was about.

She answered it anyway.

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><p>The coroner said that their bodies must have been destroyed in the crash. Susan fought back as laugh at the mere thought of it. If the professor, Aunt Polly, Eustace, and Jill hadn't been destroyed then Susan wasn't going to believe her siblings had been either. More likely than not, Aslan had hidden their bodies somewhere to be used later, but Susan wasn't going to actively try and find them. If Aslan wanted her to He would let her know.<p>

As typical of funerals, it was raining. People had been coming up to her for days, offering useless nonsense and pointless condolences. She cared nothing for any of it and really just wanted all of them to go away. It wasn't like they were actually helping her in any way, not that they could if they even if they really tried. Yet Susan was a master in the art of acting and played the role of grieving daughter very well.

Except with crying. She absolutely refused to cry.

Her siblings would not have liked it.

Besides, Aunt Alberta and Polly's mother (whose name Susan never could remember) were doing enough crying for the all three of them. This is not to say that Susan blamed them, she would have happily joined in had it been any other time, it was just that she knew there really was nothing to cry about. They were with Aslan; that should have been enough.

But it wasn't, and Susan wasn't going to kid herself into thinking that it was. She did a remarkably good job of pretending though.

Keeping her gaze on the coffins displayed at the front of the church, Susan managed to keep her mind at least away from actually thinking about them. It worked, for a while. But once they were being lowered into the ground she stopped pretending. Yes, there were bodies in six of those caskets. Six people she had, for the most part, grown up with and loved dearly. Her parents, her siblings, her friends: gone. Just like that.

Life's fragile like that.

In a way she was relieved as she watched her parents coffins being lowered into the dirt. They wouldn't have to see what their children would become. At the same time, jealousy reared its ugly head, taking in the sight of her friends' caskets being lowered. While happy for their peace, she craved the same for herself and wished desperately that maybe Aslan would forget about the job He had given her.

She didn't dwell on it.

Then, oh then the pity set it. Susan could really only feel pity for her siblings' empty caskets. The gravediggers had been kind enough to secure a grave for herself next to theirs' when the time came, but she didn't hold out much hope for that. Her brothers and sister would be back, and their brief respite was only drawing out the inevitable. She pitied them.

The mourners began to leave, Aunt Alberta's howls going with them, and Susan gave one last glance at the holes in the earth. She was alone now, the last of the sun's rays breaking through the rainclouds and reflecting off the other gravestones. She could hear Him now, calling to her, but she didn't want to answer, not now.

Yet, as the crown grew heavy on her brow and the bow began to form in her hand, Susan knew she could not put it off any longer. Opening eyes she could not remember closing, she allowed the last of the light to shine upon her, looking more beautiful now than ever. There could be no more doubts.

The ghost of a White Horse draped itself upon her left shoulder and the Sunlight called to her in her right ear.

"Susan," He called, "Come."

She moved. Giving a curtsey worthy of a Queen, Susan Pevensie died, taking Queen Susan the Gentle with her, and in their place another was born, both greater and lesser than they had both been.

The Game had begun, and so she began to play.

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><p>Susan (for it was too confusing to call her otherwise) had taken a particular shine to dengue fever. There really was no reason for it, except just that it was quick, easy, and virtually unnoticeable. HIVAIDS was a close second, followed very closely by cholera. She affectionately called them her "Big Three" and felt the need to continuously baffle mankind every time they got a leg up on one of them. Cancer, diabetes, and obesity were more subtly outrageous epidemics that she had built up in her spare time, making a game out of allowing people to "thwart" her. Vaccines and antibiotics were all the rage and the bacteria and viruses were apparently no match.

It was so cute how hard they tried.

Yes, in the years since her family's deaths, Susan had become slightly more malicious and meticulous. Not that she liked it by any means. Every time she got someone sick, her heart broke just a little bit, but it was a necessary evil that she had to play. If she hardened her heart it didn't hurt so much.

So that's exactly what she did. She allowed the doctors and scientists to fight, knowing that they were only making her stronger in the long run. Eventually, they would realize their folly, but not now. She would let them enjoy their triumph. It was only temporary and they couldn't save everyone.

Susan was discrete; she started slow before she could build herself up. And yet, despite it all, she never could bring herself to watch someone after she infected them, just as she still couldn't bring herself to look in the mirror. She knew she was only getting more beautiful. There was no need to confirm it by gazing at herself.

And so the 50's past quickly, followed closely by the 60's, and then the 70's, 80's, and finally up until the 90's.

It wasn't until New Year's Eve of 1991 (well, it was midnight so it really was 1992), that Susan recognized a change in her delicate little routine. It was subtle. No one else would have noticed it. But the hair on Susan's arms raised and a ripple passed through her kitchen just as it became the New Year.

She bit back a small smile.

She would give her big brother a week to settle in. Then, and only then, would she give him a call.

He had to get used to the phone after all.

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><p>South Africa was very different from England. It was a good thing that one of their official languages was English or she would have been bat out of luck. After her disastrous phone call with Peter, she had sped up her departure time so that she was out of England within two days. Luckily, her home was ready for her and she was able to move in quickly.<p>

It wasn't that she didn't want to see her brother, she did! it was just that she didn't want him to see her like, well, _this_. And, quite honestly, she didn't want to see him like _that _either. In the past forty some-odd years, she had taken to referring to their..._jobs_…as _This, That, Them, _and _It_. In her experiences, she tended to get a bit more malicious the longer she thought about her siblings and their future duties. Aslan only knew what she would end up doing if she actually _saw_ them, and she would not allow that. _It_ was malicious enough thank you very much. Besides, she wanted to see Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, not _Them, _and she wanted them to see her, not _It_. She had waited this long, she could wait a bit longer.

But that didn't mean she liked it.

Oh well, all of that was in England now, and she, for better or worse, was in South Africa. Not that she was going to bring out the big guns there immediately. Oh no, she was much too smart for that. No, her first big plan was to bring back an old friend to this world.

His name was Plague and Susan was about to be very busy.

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><p>Susan both hated and pitied her older brother right now. It never ceased to amaze her how cruelly brilliant he could be when given a task, while simultaneously being so completely stupid. Not even ten years back and he was already causing chaos.<p>

When she first heard about the attacks, she broke down in tears. It didn't matter that she brought death on a daily basis, it was still horrible and she almost couldn't believe her brother was capable of doing such a thing.

So she called him.

And cried over the phone.

And he cried with her.

Apparently, War takes many forms, and as Peter had told her, the button needed to pressed at some point. It didn't mean he had to like it.

All those people, he had told her, all those voices from all over the world. He heard them all, crying. And it was his fault, he told her. He didn't want to kill them and he had smashed the television set that evening when it first started being reported in London.

He sickened himself, he said. He didn't think he could do it.

But he had to; that was the worst part of all.

Because now a war would start and Peter had to push it along.

Susan hung up the phone and continued to sob.

That evening she lit 2,996 candles and prayed.

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><p>By 2050, Susan had finally realized that she was living in Purgatory. There really was no other way to describe it. It was her own personal Hell and it must have been Aslan's way of punishing her, punishing all of them. It took her a while, but she eventually accepted that it was a fitting punishment. They had abandoned all their love to this world after Narnia. It was only right that they watch the suffering they had caused.<p>

But it made no difference. She was still here and she still had that horrible job of her's to do. Peter was off somewhere up north, gallivanting through the bloody fields that had quickly sprung up once people forgot their former camaraderie and remembered old grievances. If they even recalled why they were fighting anymore Susan would eat her own shoe. Alas, it was not her job and she had more important things to deal with.

Antibiotic resistant diseases to be precise.

Oh yes, Man's greatest weapon against disease had quickly become their bane, just as Susan had predicted. If there were even one little bug still susceptible to their drugs, it probably wouldn't be for long. Susan could feel as her hair got thicker, shinier, and sleeker with each passing day. The more people she took, the more beautiful she became.

And she would bet every penny she had that Peter was the most handsome man on Earth by now.

She hated it.

Sometimes she wished she could infect herself with her own diseases.

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><p>So, apparently, computer viruses were also in her jurisdiction. Who knew? Edmund had laughed rather uproariously over the phone after she told him of her discovery and Peter had only given a long-suffering sigh, muttering something like, "off course," under his breath.<p>

Once Edmund had joined them in 2092, the world just seemed to get even bleaker. Famine ravaged everywhere, her younger brother showing no mercy. He hated those blasted food factories with a passion and Susan really couldn't blame him. It was a good thing she didn't need to eat though or she would have told him to at least spare ones in the South. As it turned out, he forced the remaining people not taken by War and Pestilence to once again rely on the land for their food.

Unfortunately, the land was rather infertile, but desperation breeds many things and people will eat almost anything as long as they're hungry enough.

To be blunt, people weren't buried anymore.

Edmund really hated his job, and Susan, whose neighbors had just died of Plague, wasn't too happy with him either.

Oh well, more people dead, more people saved. And Susan, who had just unleashed the worst computer virus of all time upon the world's remaining economy, could only give a sad smile as the suicide rates skyrocketed.

This Depression wasn't going to end.

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><p>Susan almost cried when Lucy finally made her appearance in the year 2100. Well, maybe not her appearance, but her presence at least. With the coming of Death came the promise of the End, and Susan could not be happier.<p>

She threw herself into her work with gusto never before seen by anyone. The Game was almost over. With all her bugs resistant to anything Man tried to do, she couldn't be fought off any more than Peter or Edmund or Lucy. Those remaining could not conquer the unconquerable.

The former queen had played the game well. She was underhanded and sneaky, playing in the shadows and building herself up with every new piece that came onto the board. But every game, good or bad, has to end, and Susan was going to make sure that she went out with a bang.

Her crown on her brow and bow in her hand, Susan left the little house that had been home for over a hundred years. Gracefully mounting the white horse that had been her constant companion for so long, she readied herself for the coming battle.

It was a good time for a full family reunion.

Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death.

It was almost over.

And so, for the first time in years, Susan, formerly Pevensie and always a Queen of Narnia, smiled a real smile, a pimple forming on her cheek.

She was going Home. They were all going Home.

The Lion roared.

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><p>And that's that. Well, I really don't know what to say, except Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to each and every one of you! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed (and that it didn't creep you out too much…)!<p>

Happy Holidays!

~Alabaster Ink (formerly TimeMage0955)


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